Integrating mental health services: the Finnish experience.

The aim of this paper is to give a short description of the most important developments of mental health services in Finland during the 1990s, examine their influences on the organisation and provision of services, and describe shortly some national efforts to handle the new situation. The Finnish mental health service system experienced profound changes in the beginning of the 1990s. These included the integration of mental health services, being earlier under own separate administration, with other specialised health services, decentralisation of the financing of health services, and de-institutionalisation of the services.